I was under the impression that models are thrown out in a paradigm shift
But they aren't always thrown out in a paradigm shift; that's the point. Newtonian physics was not thrown out in the paradigm shift to relativity. Our understanding of why Newtonian physics works as well as it does within its domain of validity changed; but the fact that it does work within its domain of validity did not change.
Kuhn picks a number of examples where that was not the case--where the old model did get thrown out (for example, the paradigm shift from Aristotelian physics to Galilean/Newtonian physics, and the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican model of the Solar System). But he tried to apply particular features of those examples to all paradigm shifts, which doesn't work.
Ideally, the new model resulting from a paradigm shift supercedes the old model while modeling the edge cases that the older model was unable to account for.
In the case of relativity, it did account for edge cases that Newtonian physics couldn't; but it didn't supersede Newtonian physics, as I noted above. We still use Newtonian physics where its predictions are accurate enough for our purposes, which is most of the time. It's only in particular domains (such as GPS, to pick an example ordinary people are familiar with) that we need relativity to get accurate enough results.
But they aren't always thrown out in a paradigm shift; that's the point. Newtonian physics was not thrown out in the paradigm shift to relativity. Our understanding of why Newtonian physics works as well as it does within its domain of validity changed; but the fact that it does work within its domain of validity did not change.
Kuhn picks a number of examples where that was not the case--where the old model did get thrown out (for example, the paradigm shift from Aristotelian physics to Galilean/Newtonian physics, and the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican model of the Solar System). But he tried to apply particular features of those examples to all paradigm shifts, which doesn't work.
Ideally, the new model resulting from a paradigm shift supercedes the old model while modeling the edge cases that the older model was unable to account for.
In the case of relativity, it did account for edge cases that Newtonian physics couldn't; but it didn't supersede Newtonian physics, as I noted above. We still use Newtonian physics where its predictions are accurate enough for our purposes, which is most of the time. It's only in particular domains (such as GPS, to pick an example ordinary people are familiar with) that we need relativity to get accurate enough results.